📧 “Veterans and the Episcopal Church” to Michael Curry

Hi Bishop [Michael] Curry;

Sorry it took me so long to email you after our meeting at the confirmation event on April 17th at St. Matthews in Hillsborough. I just finished all my semester assignments and I finally can sit down and get to emails that have been waiting on my proverbial desk.

As I mentioned, I am interested in theology, ethics, liturgy, and moral health of our veterans, and by that I also now mean as an Episcopalian. I wrote a book about my own journey into the church after war and am writing another currently on other soldier saints and patriot pacifists in church history with similar experiences. I have emailed some of those names you have mentioned, including those at the VA. Hopefully soon I can sit down with Rev. Miller at the Maurin house to further explore avenues to approach this set of issues. 

I would welcome any other ideas you might have for how this particular group of people within the local and national Episcopal church might influence, enrich, and challenge our lives as Christians in America during this time of waning but persistent war. I think if we cultivate a kind of atmosphere in which their painful but insightful experiences may be integrated into our faith as Christians and as Episcopalians  we would all be the better for it. Perhaps the Episcopal church is better than some Christian communities, but if so, we have a responsibility to likewise equip our fellow Christians to deal more holistically and deliberately with this generation of wounded and weary, but strong and determined service men and women. The question remains of what is, can, and should be done, and it is a conversation I will be honored to assist this diocese in having. 

+peace,

 - Logan Mehl-Laituri
Duke Divinity School, MTS '13